~ Thinking outside the box about Cambodia

Monthly Archives: December 2014

Well, another year has gone by, and when we look at ourselves in a non-transformative and clean mirror, our face has more wrinkles, sagging eyelids, grayer beards and thicker lenses. That is the course of nature, even with botox!

But that is not the reason to be grim about, life is not only or just appearance; it is the inner virtue and peace that make life worthwhile.

So said, that would not prohibit you from enjoying the Festive Season under the beautiful sun of Cambodia and the cool breeze of Khè Kacdeuk!

Even if we invoke the divine power of Heaven to mutually wish each other Good Health and Greater Happiness for the coming 2015 and throughout, the old and everlasting saying remains solidly valid: “Heaven will only take care of those who take care of themselves.” … Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera!

Kacvey, please do not whisper! Say it out loud for Pete’s sake! So, your question is what would Cambodia look like in 2015?

The answer is a question back to you: Have you consulted astrologist Moha Sangkraan or Nostradamus?

If the influence of heavenly bodies could be believed to be possibly exercised on human behavior, the study of past events could also well be useful for the formation of a probable feature of future course without objectifying it beyond the scope of a certain realism.

Nothing will change much in 2015 in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk.

Those in power will still be there even on a stretcher, with a shrinking constituency in size and less convinced in the 40-year old ideology reconfigured for convenience and power occupation and political deeds and expediencies. They will sing the refrain “après moi, le déluge” when they sense the itching on their face, but the clapping sound of the audience or the scream for “an encore” would be inaudible. Irresponsibility and un-accountability are the diamonds pendants that all elements in the public function will always wear with their golden necklaces. The sale of state lands and natural resources for private interests behind the ugly cover of national economic development will continue unabated, and more demonstrations by the dispossessed will not be discounted. The culture of denial that the country is not taking the right direction continue to be the firm belief of the leaders who do not see or refuse to see what the population-at-large see and feel. In other words, they govern the unhappy countrymen.

Those who want to have the power are running out of reasons and arguments to justify their thirst and hunger as they have already tried all the dishes in the menu. They keep on believing that their supporters are still a solid bloc as in July 2013, but the chinaware is broken everywhere, in Cambodia, North America or even France (e.g. on 27 December 2014, Villepinte or Bussy-St-Léger?) Even “Super Glue” might not do the business. Dream and hope for future premiership remain dream and hope which motivate the swelling of the ego. They might nurse a remote illusion of a cabinet shake-up which could open a possibility to enter the government using the in-vogue vocab “culture of dialogue”, whatever that means. Although the turf is well demarcated between the “minority leader” and the “1st vice-president of the NA”, nothing will stop them, from time to time, jostling each other within the party, KCTM versus KCPB! Power makes money and wealth. Power creates ambitions and corrupts.

It will not be a bright and flourishing political climate, as everybody will carefully watch each other, scrutinize the other’s move, cut the grass under the other’s feet or purely “buy it”. In Cambodia in 2015, nothing is more true than what was attributed to Vegetius: “Si vis pacem, para bellum” – If you want peace, prepare for war.

However, although the bi-dimensional politics in Cambodia is a contemporary reality, it is not by no means an absolute truth. Like everything and everywhere else, Cambodia also lives the theory of evolution. Time creates evolution of mind and matter. Therefore, there are “other” Khmers who garner the evolution of idea and concept outside the existing “bi-dimensional” paradigm. This could be recognized that Khmers have brain and know how to think freely and independently. Khmers have already lived for such a long time in a mode of “self-appointed-leaders-think-for-Khmer-people”; it is time to introduce a new mode of thinking that Khmers can very well think for themselves. He who is afraid of other people’s idea is unsure of his own.

But Kacvey, you may say this is all charlatanism. True, if it won’t happen but the jury verdict won’t be out by 31 December 2015, which date will be crucial for Cambodia in the long range: integration into Asean.

Cambodia is not ready for this international process: no legal framework, no institutional infrastructure, no economic/financial/monetary/fiscal policy, no social protection … nothing at all. There has never been a public debate on this issue involving academician, economist, social partners to assess Cambodia’s capabilities/inabilities both to participate as an equal partner and as a country which will not give away its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, nor there is a plan for public consultation through a referendum. There is no guarantee that this integration will not see planeloads/busloads of Aseanians from populated/over-populated and economically strong countries disembarking at various ports of the country taking up residence in Cambodia. We give no credence to petty politicians who blindly agree to this Asean policy because of their limited knowledge and understanding of global/regional politics. If this integration goes through, my dear Kacvey, within a span of a decade, the Khmer race might be alienated forever.

You may also ask how about the New Year resolution?

It is a fair and reasonable question or expectation for the temporal transition. Let us then, for this auspicious moment, use Horace’s Satire I as a basis for the development of the resolution:

“How is it, Maecenas, that no one is content with his own lot – whether he has it by an act of choice or taken it up by chance – but instead envies people in other occupations? …

Must every one, because of greed, be at odds with himself and envy those in other occupations; waste away because his neighbour’s goat has more milk in her udder; and instead of comparing himself with the thousands who are worse off, struggle to out do first him and then him? However fast he runs there is always somebody richer just in front.”

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2015!

Well, that’s enough for 2014, and until 2015 we shan’t add another word.

… about 300 miles to the South, in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk where the lord giant has its headquarters.

The lord giant has ruled the entire land for about 40 years and is known as Moha Préy Sènsoc or if you will, “The Great Peaceful Forrest”, or if you still will “巨大安森“. Second hand legend suggests that Ah-Sora and Eskimo X never meet the lord giant in public, but whatever they decide and do never irks the lord giant.

Things are carrying along happily, and the company of giants gets more prosperous year after year. Then came 22 July 2014 when 55 aliens, armed with 2 weapons called “democracy” and “antisipipi”, arrived in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk with a self-defined mission to “rescue” the land. Nobody knows for sure from what calamity they plan to rescue but all impressions that the villagers make out of the rescue plan is that so far the “rescuers” are being rescued by the lord giant from being drowned in the confluent of Tonlé Buon Mouk for prestigious positions such as “minority leader”, “1st vice-president”, “chairmen of commissions” with ranks and glory equivalent to ministers or higher!

No more talks and walks in Tiléan Prâchéathippatay, but luxurious cars and dapper suits. What protests are you talking about?

Ah, when the rescuers are rescued! Marivaux or Goldoni could not have written a better comic plot than that!

Having been just rescued, a daredevil alien – BTW and incidentally, a KCPB – wanted to know how did Ah-Sora and Eskimo X run the park of monuments up North, how much was the amount of revenues, how the collected money was managed, how much did the state get, and where was all the MONEY?? He even wanted to fire Ah-Sora and Exkimo X, and have them replaced by a civil servant called “Téssachôr”. The latter, as soon as he heard the news, went berserk and screamed out loud that he had nothing to do with the giants and he will not have the capacity nor the competence to replace what the giants have done. “Please leave me alone and out of this”, pleaded he.

Ah-Sora and Eskimo X took the news very calmly and sought advice from Moha Préy Sènsoc who serenely instructed them to continue to do business as if nothing has ever happened.

The usually drunk and weak Ah-Sora gets very upset as his soft spot of incompetence has been identified by the daredevil alien; he subtly told whoever wants to hear that he might divorce Eskimo X and get ravished with a new mate from beyond the Eastern border.

Meanwhile, the daredevil alien prepares his plan for the showdown with Ah-Sora and Eskimo X.

Guess you wouldn’t have forgotten the posts “Independent Cambodia” of 8 November and “KCTM vs. KCPB” on 21 November!

If you forgot, you may wish to go back and check them out, because on Tuesday 16 December, a lot of stuff happened in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk and reported in the local media. KCTM and KCPB are back in the news and names and official functions/titles were even uttered out publicly by top official of the administration. Of notable KCPB personalities who were outed are minister of Justice, minister of Women’s Affairs, minister in-charge of Border Affairs, and a prominent parliamentarian and theorist of the ruling party! The doors of the closet are wide open and the key is forever thrown into the sticky mud at the bottom of the confluent Tonlé Buon Mouk!

Let them mull over the issues as they please because the issues deal with their personal issues and interests and have nothing to do with Cambodia as a country with millions and millions of actual, competent and clean KCTMs. They use the cover of “serving Cambodia” as a pretext to hide their hypocrisy and to deceive other KCTMs.

Kacvey, you who had lived in “La Vile Lumière” for quite a long time, you should by now have met those KCPBs, on both side of the political divide, at every corner of Psar O’Russey or Psar Olympic.

When they were young, they dreamed of coming to Paris to study and later to start a brilliant career like the “barang.” And also with a French wife! Carte d’identité nationale de la République française and French passport are licence for saying to whom who would listen “anh chiéat barang” or a “banana”. And rooting for “le Coq tricolore!” At the end, their dream came true! Pride bestowed! Self-admiration fulfilled! What a miracle!

Doctors, bankers, engineers, lawyers, managers, economists, financiers, professors, singers, waiters, musicians, taxi drivers, idlers, unemployed, parasites … all walk of life, they represent. But life in the Western world is not always simple and carefree; nothing is given for free: winter, métro/boulot/dodo, 9-to-5, lay off, social security, CDI/CDD, income tax, loan/debt/credit card, lawsuit … in other words, one has to earn his/her living and organize his budget/spending. Live is good, but to earn a good or decent living is a non-stop hard work for 11 months per year … except August. And the most crucial crux in working in the Western world is the notion of responsibility and accountability that falls upon everybody at every level. If one doesn’t have it, or doesn’t exercise it properly, one is out, out, and out! And straight to “pôle emploi.”

How many of the above KCPBs jumped on UNTAC bandwagon to become “neo-patriots srâlanh chiéat?” How many broken families they created and left in France?

Post-UNTAC era was a time when opportunism emerged for those who decided to drop everything in France and to join a political party in Cambodia. Opportunists are clever and their slogan of “chuoy chiéat” became their mantra. Ask the same question of “chuoy chiéat” to 100 KCPBs, and you get 101 different answers. Opportunists shed off their self-esteem to become yes-men who fitted in perfectly into an autocratic framework. Ministerial portfolios, Generals, Advisers, èk Odom, Okgna – whether or not they have qualifications or credentials, who cares!- Welcome aboard!

Farewell responsibility and accountability so dear to the Western world! Adios amigos!

Hello Cambodia, the paradise of irresponsibility and un-accountability! and How to Make Tons of unearned Money Without Really Trying!

Twenty-one years after UNTAC, nothing has changed, if not getting worst; before, KCPB was a non-issue or a hidden issue swept under the rug and waiting to explode; nowadays, the issue is wide open and multiplied by the number of parties with seats at the National Assembly!

Opportunists breed new opportunists, and once an opportunist, always an opportunist.

KCTMs of Cambodia, beware of opportunists!

Post-scriptum: Kacvey, if you hear a KCPB telling you that he/she will surrender or give up his/her French citizenship, please tell that glib self-serving talk to perform his/her con-artistry somewhere else.

In the land North of the Tonlé Sap, lives a couple of giants whose matrimony was concocted for reason of convenience and clan interests. They occupy the entire land, forest, basin and river that, once upon a time and long, long ago, was a capital city of a glorious and enormous empire ruled for hundreds of years by virtuous and powerful dynasties and kings. Throughout the times of their reign, they built temples, monuments and infrastructures with names such as, just to mention a few, Angkor, Bayon, Bak Khèng, Bakséy ChamKrong, Néak Poarn, Bantéay Sréy, Srass Srâng, Barai …. all of them could be shamelessly put on the same pedestal as other world monuments and wonders such as the Great Wall, the Sphinx, Babylon, Syracuse amphitheater, the Forum, Parthenon etc …

His name is Ah-Sora, and it was so given because of his love for spirits. His mate, the giantess, is known as Eskimo X, because, on the one hand, of her insatiability for ice cream, and on the other she got the inspiration from ancient powerful Khmer kings whose name had a roman numeral at the end: Yaçorvarman III, Jayavarman II, Soryavarman VII … she likes “X” as she was the 10th-born. She is the head of the household as Ah-Sora is too weak of character and morals, and she knows how to control and to let other to submit to her avidity.

The couple has been married for about 20 years and their appetite and voracity for wealth have no limit in the 4 seasons of the year. With the blessing of a lord giant, the couple controls the entire business of tourism of the area where foreign tourists, individuals or groups, have to pay a fee in US dollars to visit various sites in the park of monuments.

Kacvey, with an average of about a million of tourists per year and for about 20 years, please do the calculation for yourself!

The couple is supposed to remit a portion of the revenue to the state, but nobody ever knows what is going on as:

– no marriage certificate of the 2 giants was ever made public,

– no agreement between the couple and the state has ever been published,

– no financial statement has ever been produced by the couple,

– nobody oversees their activity, and nobody dare asking any question, and

– nobody in the state is aware of anything that is going on, except the lord giant.

It is a state within a state.

The management of tourists in the park is visible but the management of the income is invisible. Another hidden arrangement is for groups who fly in from neighboring countries and the visit fees were already collected by foreign tours organizers; how, when, where and how much those fees are transferred/remitted to the couple is anybody’s guess.

Things have been so smooth and so comfortable for so long and the amassed fortune has reached an unimaginable height that could dwarf Phnom Koulén, when suddenly …

The last couple of months, Khmer Krom’s lands and people had been in the prime time news in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk with diplomatic shenanigans between Cambodia and our Eastern neighbor.

If you wish to offer a present to a friend, or if you and your friends, both Khmers and/or Khmers Krom, want to have a documented opinion for future discussions on this once-upon-a-time land that belonged to Cambodia, a recent book by Philip Taylor, a Senior Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the Australian National University, would grandly meet that purpose. The title of the book is: “The Khmer Lands of Vietnam – Environment, Cosmology and Sovereignty”, published by University of Hawai’i Press, ISBN: 978-0-8248-4673-2. Here is the link: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

As Confucius said: “You cannot open a book without learning something.”

While 2014 is about to close-out, the Asia Foundation has timely issued the result of a survey that it conducted between May 19 and June 9, 2014 in a 94-pages report “Democracy in Cambodia 2014: A Survey of the Cambodian Electorate.” Please click on the link if you or your friends wish to read and analyse the collected data and its interpretations:

Like everything else on the planet, there is more than one way to skin a cat when reading the survey report. For our part, let’s focus on the issue what would the government intend to do with the information provided therein, the most noteworthy being that most Cambodians think and say that:

– the country is headed in the wrong direction,

– corruption, deforestation, poverty, unemployment and economic issues are the source of their negative views, and

– their trust in government institutions are very low.

In the face of such an unfavorable publication, it wouldn’t be a surprise to anybody who knows how the government wishes to please the author, to see a spokesperson appearing in front of the world camera to say that the government is very pleased with the survey, thanks the author for the good work, takes note of the report contents and will address the identified problems in the course of the future and in accordance with our resources, and blah, blah, blah. Everybody is then happy, and everything stays in the report.

Now Kacvey, joke and irresponsibility aside, would you think that there would be high-ranking officials who would seriously read the report written in English? Would there be a government agency that would examine minutely chapter per chapter and reassess its actions and performances vis-à-vis the critiques? Would the government compel itself to implement the non-binding recommendations? If the report shows that Cambodian people know what the problems are, does the government know that it doesn’t know it?

The longevity of power obscures the power to serve the people, and as Catherine the Great said: “Power without a nation’s confidence is nothing.”

Hope you are not too exhausted to lose interests in reading the series of Letters on “The nephews” from Part I to Part V.

Well, please join us to dedicate this Part VI and to express immense Thanks to Taing Vida and May Titthara, and the Phnom Penh Post for publishing 2 articles which, in our opinion, help to illustrate the continuous and persisting nepotism in Cambodia.

The political news keep on emerging almost constantly in the City of Tonlé Buon Mouk, like the old and famous advertisement of “Les Galeries Lafayette”: “A tout instant, il se passe toujours quelque chose aux Galeries Lafayette!”

Well, after the “Minority Leader” (not Nancy Pelosi, though!) , it’s “the 12 points.” But Kacvey, do you recall that Deng Xiaoping had only “4” when he started the modernization (agriculture, industry, national defense and science and technology – 四个现代化 or 四化) of China 1978!

Why don’t we leave the discussion and debate on the worthiness or the lowliness of those 12 points to pundits graduated from Harvard Kennedy School of Government or Paris Sciences Po, the politicians of both side of the hemisphere or the experts/technocrats on each point, and let us focus only on “one word” that shines out from these 3 sentences reported by the PPPost:

“It is necessary that there are reforms relating to governance [and] relating to the judiciary, [because] they have not responded to the needs,” he said.

Referring to all 12 points as a whole, Hun Sen suggested his CPP and the judiciary, which is considered by observers to be politically subservient, were to blame.

“It is not the legislative body, but it is the executive body and the judiciary framework,” he said.

The word is “executive”. Now Kacvey, when you give the test to your Public Policy students could you please consider these 4 simple questions in the test sheet:

– Who is the leader of CPP?

– Who is the head of the executive branch in Cambodia?

– How long has he been in that function?

– If his ministers are responsible to him, whom he is responsible and accountable to?

Hope that your students are responsible for their studies which will help them to be responsible to their parents, friends, colleagues, peers, electorate and country.

You know, Kacvey, it is very easy to put the blame on other people, and Cambodia politics is no different.

John Burroughs, an American author, once said: “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”

… Emperor Fu Jian of Former Qin state (前秦的皇帝府坚) took his position extremely seriously. He looked for a capable aide and Wang Meng (王猛) was recommended to him. Before the recommendation, Wang Meng was a secluded and impoverished scholar who lived by himself in his hermitage on Mount Huayin (华阴山).

Wang Meng was invited for a meeting with Fu Jian, and the two hit it off immediately. Their views on the rise and decline of past dynasties turned out to be identical. Fu Jian was elated, comparing the experience to Liu Bei’s (刘备) good fortune in finding Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮) to advise him.

With the help of his trusted adviser Wang Meng,, Fu Jian was able to subdue powerful local interests and undertake political reform. At this time amn named Qiang De (强得) (brother of the empress dowager) often got into drunken brawls and was involved in the forcible taking of property and women from others. One of the first thing Wang Meng did upon becoming Metropolitan Governor of the capital was to arrest Qiang De. Though Fu Jian was informed of the arrest straight away, by the time he had sent a messenger with an imperial pardon, Qiang De had already been executed. In the next couples of months, more than 20 members of rich and powerful families, as well as some in the royal clan, were put to death, sentenced to prison terms or dismissed from office. The entire court was in shock and frightened would-be criminals were consequently dissuaded from action. “Now I understand how important it is to have the rule of law in the country.” Fu Jian said with admiration.

Well, Kacvey, since that ancient time, the disease has never been eradicated. In today’s China, this link tells us the ever-present corruption in spite of endless efforts to uproot it:

Let us now learn from historical and present days examples/lessons to see how society has been coping with this incurable disease of nepotism/corruption.

You may be right to ask why Chinese examples have been chosen for illustration, but you might have already known that Chinese history with Lao Zi (老子), Kong Zi (孔子) and the Yellow Emperor (黄帝) goes way, way back to Buddha’s time and long before Aristotle, Socrates, Charlemagne, Machiavelli, Napoléon, Newton or Columbus, and so on. You and us, since we started our schooling under the colonization, we got so stuck with Western history and culture that whatever we know of it is smaller than the ignorance that we have about Asian history and culture. The world is big, and different is the history of every part of it. Please open this link if you wish to be appraised of how today’s China economy has become in the modern world configuration: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-a-tures/does-china-really-have-the-most-powerful-economy-in-the-world_b_6277744.html

Between us, friends, a little bit of digression won’t hurt, will it! Now, revenons à nos moutons with 2 short stories on how to combat nepotism and corruption in ancient China.

1. Soft model – In 330 AD, after toppling Liu Yao (刘曜)， Shi Le (石勒) proclaimed himself Emperor of the Late Zhao (后赵). Although he was illiterate, Shi Le had high regards for scholars and intellectuals. After becoming emperor, he gave explicit orders to his troops that they were forbidden to kill any educated people captured by them, who were instead to be transported to Xiangguo (襄国) for his personal attention. On the advice of Zhang Bin (张宾), a Han (汉) intellectual, Shi Le took under his wing a group of impoverished Han scholars and organized them into a “Division of Gentlemen” (君子营). Contrary to previous emperors who appointed his relatives for high positions in the court, Shi Le founded a number of schools and put the children of his military officers into these schools to receive an education. He also found talent for public service by instituting a system of recommendations and examinations; persons recommended by local authorities for public service would be appointed if found qualified after evaluation and appraisal.

As a result of Shi Le’s ability to nurture talent as well as his relatively enlightened politics, the Later Zhao witnessed an initial period of prosperity.